Don't Leave Me
by ABitOfRomance
Summary: The second installment of You're Always On My Mind. Carlisle finds that trying to live without Alma is harder than it seems. His mind tells her that she is more than likely dead but he refuses to believe it as he tries his best to cope. He hasn't heard from her or her charges and with the passing days, the couple are slipping further and further away...
1. Chapter 1: Not A Single Word

Carlisle had no idea where she was, Alma. He knew that the children were with this Miss. Avocet that Alma had placed complete trust in. Beyond that, he knew nothing. He knew not of the past that she seemed intent on running from and the man that would not seem to let her go after whatever had happened.

He'd asked Alma what the past the two shared was, but she found the he might have been safer had Lyle not known. He worried about her and took solace in his writings. He reread most of them, already knowing the plot twists and turns, the deaths and the new found loves, the morals and what to take away. He knew that and nothing else.

He worried for her and her charges. He knew the latter were more than likely safe but the former had run off and he hadn't heard from her since, not a single word. Alma left a few months ago and he felt in his heart that she was near, not in the physical sense but on a mentally emotional level. However, this only served to make him feel more alone than ever, as he had stopped being a boy that liked to play, finding that it hurt her memory somehow.

Miss. Peregrine abandoned the house where she once lived, leaving everything that she and her charges were unable to pack to gather dust. She made sure to lock the door behind her and hid the key in a place that only herself and Carlisle knew.

The lawn that was once filled with daisies, vegetables and fruits were no longer as they had no one to tend to them and in there place stood weeds growing taller with each passing day, reaching for the tender only to find that there was none.

Carlisle poured himself another glass of brandy. He looked at the cup that sat next to the book on the table. It stared at him, wanting to be drunk. It taunted him, and with every drop taken, Carlisle felt he was slipping further and further from himself.

He turned his attention to the picture that he'd seen on the mantle of the house that belonged to the woman he once knew. Before she left, he'd taken it and suspected that Alma wouldn't notice but nothing ever passed her. She knew, and let him take it anyway. She didn't quite know why but let him nonetheless.

 _We need to leave. We aren't safe here…_ her voice rang in his ears. He replayed that fateful night over and over in his mind, it started off perfect, _too perfect_. Little did he knew that it wouldn't have lasted.

Carlisle worried for Alma; his mind told him that she was more than likely dead but he refused to believe it. He didn't want to face the fact that the woman he knew he loved was gone and that she had left him entirely. He didn't want to live without the hope that one day, he might see her again.

He needed to know that she was okay, but without word from her, that hope was slimming more with each passing day.

Yes, they had only been together for that one night but he knew that she was the one, whatever that meant, whatever that was good for. He knew that he would have been more than content spending the rest of his life with that enigmatic, crazy, amazing woman, but he took what he had for granted and was only left with the memory that too began to fade.

He saw her in his mind's eye, he became lost in those eyes of hers, he followed the curve of her lips. He studied the dark, curled hair that sat atop her head, sometimes, it flowed in twists and turns like vines off an exotic tree. His exotic woman from a far off land, from a place that he knew to only be in the fairytales he wrote.

She was straight out of a book. She was the one that got away. Alma didn't leave for something that he had done, but something she was to keep a secret for eternity. He felt the beat in his heart that longed for her. He wanted to runaway with her, but never would she let him for fear of the safety of his life.

He was afraid. He had no control and he was never one to sit by and let things happen.

Where was his love? The one that he'd written about so many times, the one that made him younger and older at the same time. The one that made him stronger and weaker. The one that made him want to be a better man but finding that staying at home was easier as he had Alma by his side, only he didn't.

He never did.

What did Alma have? A pathetic drunkard of a man who knew not of her whereabouts and whether or not she was even still alive.

Without thinking, he took the glass and drank down every last drop. His stomach tightened in protest, feeling that he was just about to spew the food he hadn't eaten and alcohol he continued to drink. His body gave a shiver and he shut his eyes wanting to be rid of not only the physical pain but of the one he felt when she left.

He poured himself another brandy.


	2. Chapter 2: Maddening Mind

"I'm sorry, Carlisle. I'm so sorry…" Alma's voice boomed on the stereo. She looked beyond the glass window, she'd tried to break it but to no avail. Carlisle looked into her eyes one last time. He could have been there forever. In there, he had no sense of time, there wasn't a clock, there was no sun to tell the days. They faded in and out, tomorrow came when he slept an hour and yesterday passed before it arrived. His life went on for eternity and he couldn't see it stopping. Time stood still. He stopped feeling anything and he knew that he would never see her again and he could do nothing. All he could do was watch it happen.

He knew, he she _was_ the one. An entire life spent looking for her, and he did. He found her and for that he was grateful. His vision was blurred but he could still see her, he _saw_ her. He used his eyes to make out her frame and used his mind to fill in the blanks. In his hands, he felt the touch of her skin, he smelled her perfume waft though the air. He heard her laugh in his ears that rang…

"I'm so sorry. I…I love…I love you…" she knew she had to choose and she went back, she'd make the same one over and over again.

 _I love you too…_ slowly, he faded out of consciousness.

When he woke, he found that he was back into a reality without her, but the dream had seemed so real. He found himself on the floor of his kitchen, laying in a pool of sweat and he appeared to have been crying in his sleep.

Carlisle was a sensitive man but hid his emotions behind a facade of confidence. This fact was one of the many reasons he began to write in the first place as it gave him a way to vent and write what was on his mind.

He weaved his emotion out into the page and placed them into the characters of his maddening mind. He found that when he reread his works, that they were a part of him, they were placed into his mindset. They felt the things he felt in real life, all he had to do was give them names and a story.

He sat up, his head spinning and the floor beneath him was like that of an elevator. He looked around the room, out toward the kitchen window that sat just above the sink, he noticed that it was dark. He'd slept all though the day and into the night.

The clothes that were drenched with sweat stuck to his skin and might have also had something to do with the fact that he had not even bothered to change his clothing for the past however long it was. He gathered what ever strength he could and picked himself up off of the floor.

He felt disgusting and gross. His hair was knotted and disheveled as he hadn't bothered to shower since the last time he changed his clothes. He didn't care for his personal hygiene because he couldn't see the point, but he figured that a shower could help with the enormous hangover he was currently suffering.

He dragged himself up the stairs and into the bathroom. He took a long look in the mirror.

"Who are you?" he asked himself, staring into eyes that he didn't recognize that had black lids making him look ten years older than he was.

"Who are you?" he asked again this time with such an urgency that it made his head pound more.

"See…that's the thing, I have no fucking idea…" he heard his reflection answer. His face was not his own, his words weren't his, this man that stood staring back was someone from out of a nightmare. Alone in a fairly large house in the middle of the night, he began to scare himself and quickly looked away from the mirror.

He turned on the water to the hottest it would allow and began to undress. What was once a tone, fit body, was becoming less so and more something Carlisle couldn't explain. He was hungry but when he ate he didn't have an appetite, all he tasted was nothing. He wasn't himself and he didn't know where he went, but this Carlisle was there now and he hated him.

He might have sounded mental, but as he thought, he knew no one would know what he was thinking as the mind of a writer was vastly different from that of someone who wasn't. Sometimes in his mind, he narrated what he was doing and where he was going. Other times, he over-thought and analyzed something to an extent that even he became annoyed of himself.

All this over a woman…a woman and her children of whom he barely even knew.

When he stepped into the shower, he let the water pour down on him. He stood with his hand bracing him against the wall. He used the opposite hand to run his fingers though his hair and down to his growing stubble. He felt old.

* * *

"So, how old are you now?" His mother asked as she put up streamers for her son's birthday party.

"Ten!" he said with pride as he watched his mother.

"Wow!" she answered like she had no idea but knew the exact date and time he was born. "That big already, huh?"

"Yeah, but momma, it isn't that old, is it?" Carlisle asked taking the streamer from her and turning it in upon itself. The two colors, back to back, twisted and turned.

 _One, two, three, four…_ he dropped it and watched it flutter to the floor. For a second, it was fleeting when it came crashing down, unraveling the progress he'd made. He took a sigh and picked it back up, untangling the two and repeated his process.

 _One, two, three, four, five, six._ He looked up from his work and counted the twists on the other streamers. _Seven, eight, nine…and ten._

"Okay, here momma." He said as he handed her the streamer to place on the other end of the room. His mother had moved the ladder and put the decoration in the corner of the room.

When the two were almost finished setting up the table, Carlisle's mother asked, taking count of the places that were set, "Aren't you going to set a place for Oliver?"

"No, he was being funny." he said as he meant 'funny' in a mean way.

"Oliver?" their mother called. What looked to be Carlisle's older brother by a few years walked down the stairs sheepishly. "Where you being mean to your brother?" The lady of the house inquired.

"Yes, but…" the boy with fair hair began. He was taller than his younger brother and was surpassing his mother in height. His face was symmetric and he had light eyes to match.

"No 'buts'," she cut him off, "I thought that we were passed this. He's younger than you are. I don't care what the fight was about but I expect an apology." she said sternly.

"Sorry, Squanchy…" a nickname that his brother used and sometimes use to tease about Lyle's height.

"Oliver Stewart?" his mother asked becoming exasperated with the teen.

"Fine." he gave his mother lip. "Sorry, Lyle." he stated without a hint of remorse.

Lyle took it as he figured it was the best he was going to get. "It's fine…"

* * *

Yes, Carlisle was now nearing his forties, and that he was middle aged, but he felt that he was a hundred years older. His body ached, he was sick. The only time he slept was due to an alcohol induced sleep.

Carlisle didn't know what to do.

* * *

Hello my dear readers! It feels so great to be writing for this story arc again! I'd like to say Thank You and extend my deepest gratitude for those of you who have stuck around for the next story about Alma and her muse. This is officially the sequel for You're Always On My Mind and focuses mainly on Carlisle as I have ultimately decided on a different direction then I originally planned.

I'm going against my better judgement and writing two stories at the same time. This story will more than likely not be updated as often then the first as I am currently writing, "Till The End Of Time". If you like Doctor Who and you ship River Song and the Twelfth Doctor than take with that what you will. I'm going to try and divide my time as evenly as I can for the two and I don't want to let down either groups of readers.

I hope that you are all liking the story so far and I want to apologize if this story is neglected. I have a few ideas in mind as to where it's going but you'll just have to wait and see.

Once again, thank you for sticking around to see what's going to happen! If you have any requests or ideas, don't be afraid to share them in the reviews or send me a personal message in my inbox and will get back to you as soon as I can.

As always,

-Your daily dose of romance

P.S. yes, Squanchy is the name of a character from 'Rick and Morty'.


	3. Chapter 3: Carlisle's Wife

She ran, she didn't run in the physical sense, but rather that of leaving her past to bite her dust. She was terrified, for the only other time she felt this truly scared, her children had saved her, literally and figuratively. Only, they weren't there. She'd entrusted a long-time friend and a woman who raised her with their safety. Alma was a strong woman, she had to be. The cross she bared that was her past, forced her hand.

For now, there was nothing anyone could do, she couldn't go to the police what would she say? She didn't hide but she didn't make herself more noticeable. She knew that other Peculiars were watching over her; seeing all, hearing all, knowing all. They were trying their best to protect her.

But she worried about _him._ Who was there to protect him, who was there to condole with him? So far as Alma knew, he had no one. He didn't talk of his past to her and she didn't with him. But when she entered his house for the first and last time, she'd noticed a picture that sat on a desk of a mother with her child, and with him. They looked happy, Alma could only assume that was Carlisle's wife, but where was she and where was the absent child?

* * *

When Carlisle stepped out of the shower, he dressed himself in a pair of fresh pants and a button up. Instead of trimming his face as he had done so many times, he opted to shave it completely revealing a chiseled jaw. He was just putting the dirtied towels and clothes in the hamper when there came a knock at the door…


	4. Chapter 4: Ordinary Human

Carlisle was just an ordinary human. He was the poster child for absolutely ordinary, he thought. His father was a lawyer and his mother need not have worked. His brother had decided to be a teacher; his subject was history. Their younger sister, however, was the only one with which Carlisle was able to confide. She was the one who listened to his rambles with fascination and advice alike. She was the easiest to talk to and her child, Rena, read her uncle's works with absolute adoration. She asked questions as to when he might be coming out with a sequel to books that needed and helped him with the creative aspect of his works. When he accepted awards for his writings, the first person he would thank would be that little girl who he liked to think, took after her uncle.

She was brave when she needed to be and was creative. She never listened to reason and was stubborn as Carlisle but terribly clever. She was tall for an eight year-old and had blonde hair like the father she never knew and had her mother's hazel eyes. But there was something about her that set her apart from other children her age. There was something that made it near impossible for her to make and keep friends, so, Carlisle was her best. Though, in hindsight, it would have never had counted as the writer was of her own family.

Lyle loved his sister and especially that little Rena. They were there for him when he had his ups and downs and were there when he simply needed a listening ear. He was there when her mother was unable, he read satires and made voices to go along with the characters. He knew her favorite foods and what she hated.

All in all, Carlisle took the time to know her for who she was and in another life, he might have made an excellent father.

* * *

"Father wants me to be a lawyer, but you and I, we both know that is about as close to happening as walking on the sun." Carlisle complained as he paced the room. He grew into a fine young man, he past his brother in height and looks and thought it might have been karma as Oliver wasn't the easiest to grow up with. He had slimmer shoulders than Lyle and would likely lose in a fist-fight, though they never bothered with such trivial concerns…most of the time.

They were still young, young enough to play-fight, but old enough to know when it was enough. Oliver was off to college, getting a degree in something or another, Lyle was just about to join his brother in the fall, and that left Samantha alone as the last child, save for the dogs. She would be finishing high school in the spring of the next year.

Carlisle found himself going to an Ivy League college and his father only agreeing to such a thing if he were to study pre-law.

"Have you told him about you not wanting to be a lawyer?" Samantha asked, watching her older brother pace to and fro in anguish.

"I think I've made it pretty clear that I don't want to Sam. One would think as smart as he is, he could at least pick up the tiny hints that I've not so quietly dropped." He spoke as his eyes squinted and his brows knitted together. After a few moments, he added, "He's terrible at being a father."

"Watch it!" Sam told him sternly. "He might not be the best at being a father but he's done so much."

"You're beginning to sound like mom." he told her as he weaved his fingers though his hair.

"Don't you dare say that to me. You know I can't stand her."

All three of the Stewart children agreed behind locked doors and closed windows that they would never grow to be like their parents. They didn't hate them but rather were not fond of either of them. Mother was once a lovely young woman but after years of neglect, grew to be drunk who looked away from how the children's father acted toward them, all of them. Father was a workaholic who, when he wasn't busy, bared down on the children to become working adults and blamed the family dysfunction on his wife and her alcohol dependency.

"Get a job and go to work for the rest of your life!" The old man with a round belly and tall stature yelled at the children because "he'd had a terrible day at work". Mother tried to calm him and when he turned back to his 'wife', he slapped her. The children paid witness to this and thus the pact that they would never be like their parents began.

The feeling of tolerance was mutual and the children of the parents found that Oliver was the favorited child, though he doubted their parents even had a favorite.

The Stewarts' wore a facade that they were the epitome of an American Dream family, smiling for the cameras despite the fact that half of them could barely be in the same room at a time.

"I don't know, Sam. I want to do something with my life, I want to change the world. I want people to question why they're here and what it's like to live but I don't think this is the best way."

"So, what do you want to do?" she asked.

"I don't…I have no idea…"

* * *

He waited a beat to see if he heard correctly. When the knock came again, he found that his body was moving without his mind as he soon found himself at the door, twisting the knob. When the door let out a searing creak, he found himself in the company of two police officers.

"Hello," one of the two began. He wore a grim face, devoid of any and all emotion. "is this the house of a Mister Carlisle Stewart?" he asked reading the name off a slip of paper concealed by the hand. "We're sorry to bother you at such a late hour."

"Yes, it's fine…what can I help you with, officers?" Lyle asked, sensing something was off. He didn't know what it was but being greeted by the two, the kilter of his world shifted and had nothing to do with the left over booze still coursing it's way though his system.

"There's been an accident." The officer who had begun speaking took off his hat as the one who stood behind followed suit.

"What?" Lyle asked not hearing correctly.

"There's been an accident involving her sister and niece." he spoke solemnly, treading his words and presence carefully. "From our reports, they were traveling back from the airport…"

"Yeah," Carlisle interrupted. "they were coming back from New York…"

"Mister Stewart, I'm sorry to have to tell you this but your sister is dead and your niece is in the hospital under intensive care and as you are now her sole guardian..."

"No, I just…I just…" Carlisle began, not even knowing where his words were going. His world faded from reality and he wanted to be dreaming like the ones he had of _her._ They were so realistic and he wanted desperately to wake up, he thought he drank himself in too deep, that he slipped in the shower and was laying in the tub, but in the back of his mind, he knew it was not so.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Stewart, is there anything we can do?"

The voice he heard in his ears was muddled at best and the sound of invisible drums played in his head.

"Mr. Stewart?" the officer asked once again.

"No…no…" he said as he closed the door to the outside world. "No..."


	5. Chapter 5: A Sheep Among Lions

He stood against the support of the door to a house that did not belong to him, filled with objects that were not his. Yes, he'd paid for them and used them but the man he felt he thought he knew, was gone. Carlisle was gone and was away for a long while and he doubted the man he once knew would ever come back.

Without knowing what he was doing, he walked over to the typewriter his sister had gotten him as a birthday and put that thought to the back of his mind. He began to type.

 _I do not know where I have gone. I have found myself in the midst of chaos though I am a sheep, a sheep among lions._

He began typing off topic.

 _She was_ he typed, tears filled his lids and just a quickly as they came, were gone. He needn't have blinked for they fell on their own. His shoulders heaved up and down, his chest filled with air though he felt his body was not getting any. He looked down at the buttons sticking out of the damned thing and saw black circles filling his vision.

His body trembled and his world stopped working. He felt faint, he stood out of his chair finding that he was unable to sit and began pacing the room like he did when he was faced with something that was possibly life-altering.

He crossed and uncrossed his arms, as he felt it was too constricting. He brought a finger to his lips and began to chew his thumb. It must have been a few minutes because when he looked back at his finger, the nail was bitten to the quick and was bleeding.

He blinked the never ending tears and looked down at the crimsoned thumb and squeezed, oozing the blood out of the husk that was now his body. He squeezed harder and soon the liquid coursed from out the crevasse of his nail and began rolling down his thumb filling in the lines of his print near his calluses.

He didn't know what he was doing but was seeing it though his eyes though they were not so. He saw but did not feel. He thought but did not want to. He heard nothing, felt nothing, there was nothing.

The world beyond the walls of the house did not exist. The outside world only a lie that he lived with with.

He walked back to the table of his typewriter, only he did not sit. He grabbed the package of cigarettes, tore off the top and picked one of the treasures inside. He put the cylindrical stick to his lips and looked around the space for a source of flame. When he found the matchbox, he quickly opened it, spilling most of the contents out onto the floor.

The man bent over and picked up a match, striking it against the exterior of the box. He fell to the floor, his weight giving out from beneath him. He curled himself into a sitting fetal position and took several long drags of the cigarette.

He felt the nicotine coursing though his body and began to relax slightly though the tears kept falling. He didn't bother to wipe them as he knew more would replace them.

He felt hundreds of emotions coursing though him: grief, anger, fear, sadness, misery, woefulness, sorrow…

He took these thoughts and continued to smoke, he only lifted his head that lay in his arms to steal the drags. He only looked up when he felt the ciders burn his index and middle finger. He stubbed the cigarette on the floor, not caring if it burned the wood or reached to the carpet.

He could have burned the house to the ground with him inside and he would not care. He would sit unmoving as the flames reached the tips of his toes and enveloped him into a burning death. There, his body would remain, the house he once lived to encapsulate him and become his tomb. His tears would be his only attempt at extinguishing the fire, though it was not by choice.

He looked around at the books, most of them he read, others he wrote. The papers thrown askew with words that meant nothing. Hollow like he was. Words were only able to go so far, then there was the need to feel it.

His writings, love, hope, adventure…he used to crave those things out of life and wonder what it felt like to be truly happy, filled to the brim with pure bliss…he did not know what those things were anymore, though he doubted if he ever did.

The world around him was dark, literally and figuratively. He dare not move as the ghosts that came out of the darkness would terrify him. He knew that if he walked into the kitchen to pour himself a drink, there would be no one to stop him, to tell him he had enough, to send him to bed. He could drink himself into a coma, or die from alcohol poisoning and there would be no one in which he could call for she was dead, she was gone. She was gone and left him like he never mattered.

He had no one. That realization made the tears fall harder and harder. He felt he could not cry anymore and chose to pick himself up and sit on the couch, where he sat. He did not think of the days to come, he did not call his brother to inform him of the news. He did not call his mother or least of all his father. He didn't want it, any of it.

Out of sadness or anger, he stood from where he sat as he could not keep still but moving and disturbing the ghosts that haunted within scared him. He wanted them to come, he wanted them to take him away, and in this ditch effort, he picked up the coffee table and threw it clear across the room, the content flying with it. He walked over to one of his numerous shelves of books and grabbed them by the handfuls throwing them too.

Loose pages fell and dropped to the floor. He walked over the couch in which he just sat and flipped it over, tumbling in upon itself. When his energy was spent, he leaned against a self that was now void of books. His back pressed against the levels of shelving and there, he made his stand. This version of himself, let him go and there, unbeknownst to him, something changed.

Though the tears were back, Carlisle was going to have to find a way…

He looked up to see what he had done, to see the damaged he caused. Broken bits of glass littered the floor, feathers askew, though he had no idea where they came from. The books he once loved, as they were his first, lay damaged and the hard-cover bindings bent. Broken frames of pictures, lamps and a clock who's tick slowly faded as it became stuck on the second never to move, never to go forward.

He looked up to see dust particles and watched them float. He could not cry anymore as he had shed whatever tears his body was able to produce. Again, he stood, only this time, walking to the kitchen, grabbed a cup and for the briefest of seconds considered going on another alcohol binge. Instead, he walked over to the refrigerator and poured himself some water as that was what his body was craving the most.

Taking the cup, he walked back to what was left of his living room, shut off the light and went upstairs to send himself to bed where he quickly fell in the an unrestful bout of sleep and did not wake for the next twelve or so hours.


End file.
